Insert cheese-head joke here

Assembly Bill 556: An act designating the bacterium Lactococcus lactis as the Wisconsin state microbe. Lactococcus lactis would be the bacterium responsible for turning milk into cheese. "We call those people who oppose it lactose intolerant," said Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie). (Via Microbe World)

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: News

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

MrsBug

I can’t decide if Wisconsin is wasting time or if I approve of their tongue-in-cheek view of things. Ah, what the heck, it’s the holidays. Tongue-in-cheek it is. :D
- IronEdithKidd
  
  I wish I could grant them the same benefit of doubt, but I can’t. They have the same kind of budget problems that we have in Michigan ($6B WI budget deficit projected for 2011).
tweygant

And don’t for get, people from Wisconsin consume the most brandy of anyone else in the world. A friend of mine went into a bar in Germany, ordered a brandy old fashioned and the bartender asked if he was from Wisconsin. ya hey der wisconsin
Hank

Everybody loves the smell of that dairy air.
Brainspore

Every so often I like to mention that California leads the U.S. in both cheese and beer production just to piss off the Wisconsinites.
- retrojoe
  
  Additionally, I think Colorado actually is again #1 in US beer production. But the latest data I could find on that was for 2006.
mypalmike

I can’t believe lactococcus lactis beat out helicobacter pylori for the state microbe. Did the citizens get a chance to vote for this, or was it just a bunch of shady back-room deals with the powerful lactococcus lobby?
- Mark Gordon
  
  Who in their right mind wants H. pylori? I’m wondering why they’re favoring L. lactis over S. cerevisiae.
retrojoe

This isn’t exactly going to take up a lot of time and expense to pass. There’s no harm in pushing something like this through quickly. The economy in WI will not collapse because of it, no one will lose their job.

Regarding CA vs. WI milk/cheese production; Actually, CA only beats WI in Milk production. WI remains #1 in cheese by about 20 million lbs per month (2008 data). In fact, I live in Oakland, CA and see more WI cheese on store shelves than CA cheese. Yes, CA leads in milk production but per sq mile or per capita WI is far and above the leader.

http://future.aae.wisc.edu/collection/dairyproductsreport/DairProdSu_2008_13.pdf
- Brainspore
  
  Hey, I didn’t say it was accurate, just that it pisses off Wisconsinites. ; )
grimc

Wisconsin, California–bah. I’ll take Tillamook Cheddar and Oregon beer any day of the week.
Jenonymous

Okay, I may as well start the obvious joke here.

I nominate the entire NY State Senate as our collective microbes. Why? They can live off off any kind of crap, they can spoil anything, are impossible to get rid of, and they have the processing power of single-cell organisms.

Can I get an amen on that?
- Anonymous
  
  Yes, Jenonymous. Amen.
dreamfish

Broken link
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Fixed.
IronEdithKidd

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that there are more important things that the Wisconsin legislature *should* be tackling?
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Because you are lactose intolerant. The original post covered this. ;)
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    No, I’m damned well not!
    
    Jaypee: I was born smack in the middle of that cow-infested state. You can just save the southern neighbor hatin’ for an actual fib. There’s a special place in hell for people that drive slower than the speed limit in the passing lane.
    - jaypee
      
      “..cow-infested state”? I think you meant something like; “..state graced by the beatific presence of those gentle, humble, milk-producing angels”.
      - Anonymous
        
        that smell nothing like the neighors to the south’s hog farms…
      - IronEdithKidd
        
        I don’t really have anything against dairy cows. Pigs on the other hand…
        
        Seriously though, Iowa is the only other state I’ve lived in where finding mangled cow-corpses strewn across the freeway is a regular occurrance.
- Artimus Mangilord
  
  Beat me to it.
jaypee

And this is why I love my state. IronEdithKidd sounds like a FIB to me… ;-)